Get a Free Ebook

Five Inspirational Truths for Authors

Try our Video Classes

Downloadable in-depth learning, with pdf slides

Find out more about My Book Therapy

We want to help you up your writing game. If you are stuck, or just want a boost, please check us out!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Product Placement—A Two Way Street

With the upcoming ACFW conference, I considered writing a post about publicity and conferences. However at this point in the game, the best advice I could give is: network, network, network.

Hopefully, everyone already knows this. If you do not, find Gina, follow her, and do what she does. (In a worse-case scenario, she can be bought—cheap too.)

So instead, I'm going to post about an article that grabbed my interest this week. It deals with product placement in books for publicity and marketing purposes.

[
Click Here] to read said article.
[
Click Here] to read an article by Bill Fitzhugh and how he used this tactic to gain publicity for his novel.

So far, product placement in books hasn't leapt to the point where M&M's and Pepsi are clambering to be partnered with upcoming best sellers. Nevertheless, the concept can work in reverse for writers. Placing specific names or products in your novel can help you gain attention.

Example:

--I've seen television and radio producers take interest in an author just because their show was either in a scene or mentioned in the novel.

--Or, let's say you’re writing mom-lit and your character relies on a real network of mom's called "Mom's Can Do." When you publish, there's a good chance "Mom's Can Do" will be willing to send an e-mail telling their members there is a novel that features them.

--Setting your novel in a real location can spark interest with local media and residents.

There is opportunity to add elements to your novel that will make it easier to publicize. Of course, in a society where we are bombarded with advertisements and messages, there's also the possibility of turning your readers off. So, plant carefully.

I hope everyone has a great conference!

6 comments:

  1. I used this concept but didn't plan it with ulterior motives. I needed a vehicle for one character to find another after years of separation. My heroine won a design award, so I used a popular morning show to interview her.

    I first contacted the co-hosts for permission. After checking with the legal department, they were delighted for me to use them, as long as I didn't depict the show or the network in a bad light, which I wasn't going to.

    After the scene was written, I realized I probably have a good chance of getting the book on the show once it's published. I plan to send each of the co-hosts a copy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post Jess. This is interesting and I, like you, have mixed feelings about it. It seems like a fine line to walk but I can definitely see how to use a natural mention of a product, et al, for my publicity. Interesting.

    I would just caution folks that when it's obvious, it's a huge turn off.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Jessica.

    Regarding the conference...Gina's motto reminder...what goes on there, stays there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Comments lifted from Dean Koontz's web site:

    Sorry, but no marketing executive in his right mind would pay a novelist for product placement. And let me hasten to assure you that I don’t mean insane marketing executives are paying me for product placement. Product placement happens in movies all the time, but I can’t imagine any self-respecting novelist who would do it even if anyone was crazy enough to offer. The impact of reading a brand name, say, Kraft Mayonnaise, in a novel is negligible compared to seeing Angelina Jolie slathering her body with Kraft Mayonnaise in a movie. What the brands pay for in movies is visibility and association with glamorous celebrities. I am about as glamorous as a woodchuck. Generally speaking, I use fewer brand names than most contemporary authors, and I suspect I used no more than usual in VELOCITY. Possibly you were attuned to the mentioned brands because you are more familiar with them than those mentioned in other novels. By this I do not mean to imply that you spend a lot of time in bars (Billy, my protagonist, is a bartender), or that you are daily swilling down Guinness, Heineken, and Elephant beer in vast quantities.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Interesting post,Jess. I've set my novel partly in the Yukon and partly in Seattle and plan to use that to my advantage when the book comes out in March. Like others, the idea of using product in the book seems a little off-putting to me. Unless, of course, it would result in a boatload of chocolate being sent to my door. I'll do anything for chocolate! :)M

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think of ET and the Reese's Pieces. And I think I remember Stephen King giving the advice that he would use say 'Dr. Pepper' to draw the reader in and make the weird world he writes seem more normal.

    So... if a product mention comes up naturally, well, then why not use it to your advantage? We do that with settings like Marci mentioned or if we were writing about a school teacher we might target this audience.

    Like I said, a fine line. It would be a huge turnoff if I read a book and it read like The Truman Show however.

    I think Jess did a fantastic job of talking about this issue.

    ReplyDelete

Don't be shy. Share what's on your mind.